June 9th, 2009

On Timing.

In my Web 3.0 class last spring I heard the story of Six Degrees. Six Degrees was a social network that started in 1997 and shut down in 2001. It was one of the first online social networking sites and according to this screenshot (thanks Way Back Machine) they had over 2 million users in 1999:

We spent a lot of time in class analyzing why Six Degrees didn’t survive the dotcom bust. Social networks were going to be huge! The power of the network effect would crush new competitors!

…and yet they didn’t make it.

I think the demise of Six Degrees shows the importance of timing. How many pre-youtube youtubes tried and failed because most people didn’t have broadband and couldn’t support streaming video? There are tons of theories out there that speculate on which products are widely adopted, but more and more I am realizing that timing is one of the most compelling factors.